Q50. Which individuals belonged to the Serampore Mission: (1) William Carey (2) Joshua Marshman (3) William Ward (4) David Hare?
[CDS GK, 10 Apr 2022]
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 1 and 3 only
(c) 1, 2 and 3 only
(d) 2, 3 and 4 only
Answer: (c) 1, 2 and 3 only
Explanation: The Serampore Trio comprised Carey, Marshman and Ward, who led missionary, educational and printing activities in Danish Serampore. David Hare was also associated with education in Bengal but was not one of these three missionaries.
Q49. The Treaty of Pondicherry followed which war?
[DSSSB Junior Secretariat Assistant, 9 Apr 2022, Shift 1]
(a) First Anglo-Sikh War
(b) Revolt of 1857
(c) Second Carnatic War
(d) First Anglo-Mysore War
Answer: (c) Second Carnatic War
Explanation: The Treaty of Pondicherry ended the Second Carnatic War in the mid-1750s. That struggle involved English and French intervention in the disputed successions of Hyderabad and the Carnatic, with Indian political alliances central to the fighting.
Q48. Which statements are correct: (1) Dutch factories on the east coast were on Gajapati grants; (2) Albuquerque captured Goa from Bijapur; (3) Madras land was leased through a Vijayanagara representative?
[UPSC CSE Prelims 2022]
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only
Explanation: The Dutch Gajapati-grant claim is inaccurate. Albuquerque took Goa from Bijapur in 1510, while the English secured a Madras site from a local Nayaka associated with the Vijayanagara political sphere. Thus statements 2 and 3 stand.
Q47. Which treaty concluded the First Carnatic War?
[MPPSC Assistant Professor History Paper II, 2022]
(a) Aix-la-Chapelle
(b) Fort St. David
(c) Paris
(d) Trichinopoly
Answer: (a) Aix-la-Chapelle
Explanation: The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 ended the War of the Austrian Succession and brought the First Carnatic War to a close. Britain recovered Madras, which French troops had seized earlier in the conflict.
Q46. Which Portuguese viceroy is linked with the Blue Water Policy?
[UP Police SI, 1 Dec 2021, Shift 2]
(a) Vasco da Gama
(b) Pedro Álvares Cabral
(c) Francisco de Almeida
(d) Afonso de Albuquerque
Answer: (c) Francisco de Almeida
Explanation: Francisco de Almeida governed Portuguese India from 1505 to 1509 and emphasized naval control of Indian Ocean sea lanes. His sea-centred strategy is called the Blue Water Policy, contrasting with the greater emphasis on territorial bases under Albuquerque.
Q45. Nuno da Cunha shifted the Portuguese headquarters from Cochin to which city?
[UP Police SI, 20 Nov 2021, Shift 1]
(a) Bombay
(b) Delhi
(c) Madras
(d) Goa
Answer: (d) Goa
Explanation: Nuno da Cunha, governor of Portuguese India from 1529, moved the administration’s headquarters from Cochin to Goa around 1530. Goa’s location and defenses made it the leading political base of the Estado da Índia.
Q44. Which Europeans established an early modern maritime trading presence in India in 1498?
[UP Police SI, 13 Nov 2021, Shift 2]
(a) Portuguese
(b) British
(c) French
(d) Danish
Answer: (a) Portuguese
Explanation: The Portuguese expedition of Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498 after rounding southern Africa. It preceded the early modern Dutch, English, Danish and French chartered company activities along India’s coasts by roughly a century.
Q43. Which European power built an early European fort in India in 1503?
[SSC MTS, 11 Oct 2021, Shift 1]
(a) Dutch
(b) British
(c) French
(d) Portuguese
Answer: (d) Portuguese
Explanation: The Portuguese constructed Fort Emmanuel at Cochin in 1503, among the earliest European fortifications on the Indian mainland. Coastal forts helped protect warehouses and commercial agreements while securing the emerging Portuguese maritime trading network.
Q42. Which European trading nation was first to reach India by the Cape sea route?
[DSSSB TGT Social Science, 6 Sep 2021, Shift 3]
(a) British
(b) Portuguese
(c) Dutch
(d) French
Answer: (b) Portuguese
Explanation: Portugal’s Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut in 1498, well before the Dutch, English or French chartered companies became established in India. Portuguese forts, factories and naval passes shaped early sixteenth-century oceanic commerce.
Q41. Chandernagore, captured by the British in March 1757, was a colony of which power?
[SSC CGL, 13 Aug 2021, Shift 3]
(a) French
(b) Danish
(c) Portuguese
(d) Dutch
Answer: (a) French
Explanation: Chandernagore was a French trading enclave on the Hooghly River. British naval and Company forces captured it in March 1757, shortly before the Battle of Plassey, weakening French prospects of aiding the Nawab of Bengal.
